As many of you are well aware this last Saturday played host to the First Annual Norman Music Festival, and for a first time festival I think things went extremely well. The lineup was great and the price was right. Really where else are you going to see some seriously kick ass bands for Free? Nowhere! There were 3 stages all within walking distance of each other, but far enough away there wasn’t any sound bleed over. Well one of the stages was inside the Sooner Theater so there wasn’t any real threat of bleed over there to begin with, but the appropriately named East and West stages were located just the right distance apart. Actually the location of the festival was pretty cool. They shut down a large section of Main Street and had a stage at each end. The spacious gap from sidewalk to sidewalk created a unique alley type venue that was kind of interesting. A lot of the Main Street merchants were open and serving food/beer which provided a nice little break from the Oklahoma sun. Guestroom records were also open and provided a scene right out of High Fidelity. There were tons of people all hanging out, talking music, drinking beer and flipping though old vinyl. Truthfully the scene reminded me why I love music so much.

Read More, Check Out Some Pictures, and Grab Some NMF MP3’s After the Jump… 

I arrived just in time to catch a few minutes of Ryan Lindsey and then rush over to the East stage for the Evangelicals. My wife arrived in time for Colourmusic and said that they get immensely better every time she sees them. The Evangelicals brought the rock as usually and were noticeably thrilled about being on the lineup in their hometown. Next up was the Octopus Project who brought their hook heavy electronic music up I-35 from Austin. They adorned the stage with some type of creepy ghost/bat things that for some reason made the music sound that much better.

Next on the lineup was British Sea Power. I had heard their albums and enjoyed them, but was in no way prepared for their live show. These guys were absolutely insane, especially guitarist, Martin Noble. At one point he decided to stick a giant tree branch in the back of his shirt. From this point he climbed on some dude’s shoulders as he waded through the crowd. The impressive thing was that he kept playing through the entire thing. Once back on stage he did a rather lengthy head stand and then climbed up the side of the stage, not just a little bit but pretty much all the way. I’m pretty sure he might have spent Sunday noodling with a few members of the crowd. Needless to say BSP brought the rock and converted at least one casual fan into a pretty hard core fan. Mission Accomplished!

This leads us to the Reunited Chainsaw Kittens show. Excluding the previous evenings show at the conservatory the band hadn’t played together in eight years. You could really tell the crowd had high hopes for this one and the Kittens didn’t disappoint. They got things kicked off with “Savior Boyfriend Collides” and Tyson Meade did his thing from that point on. They sounded amazing and you could tell they were having a wonderful time playing to such a receptive crowd. I and just about everyone else in OKC would love to see these guys play a few more shows or even work on an album, but I guess I should just be happy I had the opportunity to catch them live. Also, if anyone happens to know the setlist I would love to know what it was. You can email me or just post it in the comment for the world to see.

By this time my feet were hurting really bad so I was less enthused than I normally would be for the Polyphonic Spree. The 22 to 24 member group led by former Tripping Daisy’s front man, Tim DeLaughter did not disappoint. All the members on stage together, dancing and playing many types of instruments provided kind of a magical vision. I left a bit early to beat traffic and as I was walking away the Spree kicked into Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die.” I can honestly say this was a perfect way to end a perfect day.

Colourmusic

Ryan Lindsey

Evangelicals

Octopus Project

British Sea Power

Chainsaw Kittens

Polyphonic Spree

MP3’s:

Chainsaw Kittens - Silver Millionaire (mp3)
Ryan Lindsey - Summertime (mp3)
Colourmusic - Circles (mp3)
British Sea Power – No Lucifer (mp3)
Evangelicals – Party Crashin’ (mp3)
The Octopus Project - Queen (mp3)
Polyphonic Spree - Section 26 [We Crawl] (mp3)